Apartheid Books

Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid

Jimmy Carter

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Total reviews: 695 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The crowning achievement of Jimmy Carter's presidency was the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, and he has continued his public and private diplomacy ever since, winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his decades of work for peace, human rights, and international development. He has been a tireless author since then as well, writing bestselling books on his childhood, his faith, and American history and politics, but in Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, he has returned to the Middle East and to the question of Israel's peace with its neighbors--in particular, how Israeli sovereignty and security can coexist permanently and peacefully with Palestinian nationhood.

It's a rare honor to ask questions of a former president, and we are grateful that President Carter was able to take the time in between his work with his wife, Rosalynn, for the Carter Center and Habitat for Humanity and his many writing projects to speak with us about his hopes for the region and his thoughts on the book.

A big thank you to President Carter for granting our request for an interview.

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An Interview with President Jimmy Carter

Q: What has been the importance of your own faith in your continued interest in peace in the Middle East?
A: As a Christian, I worship the Prince of Peace. One of my preeminent commitments has been to bring peace to the people who live in the Holy Land. I made my best efforts as president and still have this as a high priority.

Q: A common theme in your years of Middle East diplomacy has been that leaders on both sides have often been more open to discussion and change in private than in public. Do you think that's still the case?
A: Yes. This is why private and intense negotiations can be successful. More accurately, however, my premise has been that the general public (Jewish, Christian, and Muslim) are more eager for peace than their political leaders. For instance, a recent poll done by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem showed that 58% of Israelis and 81% of the Palestinians favor a comprehensive settlement similar to the Roadmap for Peace or the Saudi proposal adopted by all 23 Arab nations and recently promoted by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Tragically, there have been no substantive peace talks during the past six years.

Q: How have the war in Iraq and the increased strength of Iran (and the declarations of their leaders against Israel) changed the conditions of the Israel-Palestine question?
A: Other existing or threatened conflicts in the region greatly increase the importance of Israel's having peace agreements with its neighbors, to minimize overall Arab animosity toward both Israel and the United States and reduce the threat of a broader conflict.

Q: Your use of the term "apartheid" has been a lightning rod in the response to your book. Could you explain your choice? Were you surprised by the reaction?
A: The book is about Palestine, the occupied territories, and not about Israel. Forced segregation in the West Bank and terrible oppression of the Palestinians create a situation accurately described by the word. I made it plain in the text that this abuse is not based on racism, but on the desire of a minority of Israelis to confiscate and colonize Palestinian land. This violates the basic humanitarian premises on which the nation of Israel was founded. My surprise is that most critics of the book have ignored the facts about Palestinian persecution and its proposals for future peace and resorted to personal attacks on the author. No one could visit the occupied territories and deny that the book is accurate.

Q: You write in the book that "the peace process does not have a life of its own; it is not self-sustaining." What would you recommend that the next American president do to revive it?
A: I would not want to wait two more years. It is encouraging that President George W. Bush has announced that peace in the Holy Land will be a high priority for his administration during the next two years. On her January trip to the region, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called for early U.S.-Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. She has recommended the 2002 offer of the Arab nations as a foundation for peace: full recognition of Israel based on a return to its internationally recognized borders. This offer is compatible with official U.S. Government policy, previous agreements approved by Israeli governments in 1978 and 1993, and with the International Quartet's "roadmap for peace." My book proposes that, through negotiated land swaps, this "green line" border be modified to permit a substantial number of Israelis settlers to remain in Palestine. With strong U.S. pressure, backed by the U.N., Russia, and the European Community, Israelis and Palestinians would have to come to the negotiating table.

1/18/2007

Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present

Harriet A. Washington

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Total reviews: 38 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

From the era of slavery to the present day, the first full history of black America’s shocking mistreatment as unwilling and unwitting experimental subjects at the hands of the medical establishment.

Medical Apartheid is the first and only comprehensive history of medical experimentation on African Americans. Starting with the earliest encounters between black Americans and Western medical researchers and the racist pseudoscience that resulted, it details the ways both slaves and freedmen were used in hospitals for experiments conducted without their knowledge—a tradition that continues today within some black populations. It reveals how blacks have historically been prey to grave-robbing as well as unauthorized autopsies and dissections. Moving into the twentieth century, it shows how the pseudoscience of eugenics and social Darwinism was used to justify experimental exploitation and shoddy medical treatment of blacks, and the view that they were biologically inferior, oversexed, and unfit for adult responsibilities. Shocking new details about the government’s notorious Tuskegee experiment are revealed, as are similar, less-well-known medical atrocities conducted by the government, the armed forces, prisons, and private institutions.
The product of years of prodigious research into medical journals and experimental reports long undisturbed, Medical Apartheid reveals the hidden underbelly of scientific research and makes possible, for the first time, an understanding of the roots of the African American health deficit. At last, it provides the fullest possible context for comprehending the behavioral fallout that has caused black Americans to view researchers—and indeed the whole medical establishment—with such deep distrust. No one concerned with issues of public health and racial justice can afford not to read Medical Apartheid, a masterful book that will stir up both controversy and long-needed debate.

The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America

Jonathan Kozol

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Total reviews: 53 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Over the last 15 years, the state of inner-city public schools has been in a steep and continuing decline. Since the federal courts began dismantling the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, segregation of black children has reverted to its highest level since 1968. In many inner-city schools, a stick-and-carrot method of behavioral control traditionally used in prisons is now used with students. Meanwhile, as high-stakes testing takes on pathological and punitive dimensions, liberal education has been increasingly replaced by culturally barren and robotic methods of instruction that would be rejected out of hand by schools that serve the mainstream of society.

Filled with the passionate voices of children, principals, and teachers, and some of the most revered leaders in the black community, The Shame of the Nation pays tribute to those undefeated educators who persist against the odds, but directly challenges the chilling practices now being forced upon our urban systems by the Bush administration. In their place, Kozol offers a humane, dramatic challenge to our nation to fulfill at last the promise made some 50 years ago to all our youngest citizens.

Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography--The True Story of a Black Youth's Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa

Mark Mathabane

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 98 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A Must read 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I picked up this book after watching the movie "Tsotsi". I was looking for a book about apartheid in South Africa and stumbled upon this one. And I am so glad I did. The author has done a great job in detailing his childhood and the struggle he and his family went through. Half-way through the book I found it extremely depressing and decided to stop. Later that night I realized that people have courage to actually go through and I can't even complete reading the book? People in Africa still go through horrifying experiences...Yes, it was a depressing read but a definite MUST. An absolute eye opener...

Editorial Review:

Kaffir Boy does for apartheid-era South Africa what Richard Wright's Black Boy did for the segregated American South. In stark prose, Mathabane describes his life growing up in a nonwhite ghetto outside Johannesburg--and how he escaped its horrors. Hard work and faith in education played key roles, and Mathabane eventually won a tennis scholarship to an American university. This is not, needless to say, an opportunity afforded to many of the poor blacks who make up most of South Africa's population. And yet Mathabane reveals their troubled world on these pages in a way that only someone who has lived this life can.

American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass

Douglas Massey, Nancy Denton

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Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Excellent Book, Should Be Required Reading For Any Educated Person. 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I was required to read this book as a freshman in college and I am so glad that I did. Very informative and full of statistical data to back up its claims, this is one of the best books I've ever read on the subject. Any educated or well read person should be able to read this book without any problems.

TORTURE 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This book is more painful to read than Eichmann in Jerusalem, Germinal, or the pornographic The Rehnquist Choice by John Dean. But everyone should try. The book first describes how white Americans have kept their residential neighborhoods white since about 1920. Initially by simply murdering African-Americans trying to move in. Then with widespread restrictive deed covenants. More recently, with loan institution redlining, and low-income public housing under-funding and ripoffs. Most recently, add, with pervasive real estate agent ruses, misdirection, and discouragement. This history needed telling clearly and succinctly. Subsequently, the book defines "apartheid" rigorously and identifies it in sixteen urban areas in the country, urban areas containing a substantial percentage of all African-Americans. The book then looks at the living conditions of the most isolated, homeless and hopeless, drug-and-violence-obsessed African-Americans, and identifies apartheid as a cause, if not the cause, of these conditions.

John Dean's book says that Nixon in the early 1970's required his three Supreme Court appointees, the most important of whom was Chief Justice William Rehnquist, to be "right" on the race-residential question and, essentially, to look with disfavor on federal efforts to enforce the Fair Housing Act with respect to single-family homes. Consequently, American residential neighborhoods -- already less integrated in 1970 than in 1920 -- are less integrated now than in 1970. Between 1920 and 1970 the racial prejudice of individuals probably could be blamed. In the thirty-five years since Rehnquist commenced to "put his stamp" on the United States Supreme Court, it's been the snowballing insanity of our electoral system and its deformed progenies, based on money and gerrymandering undisturbed by Court rulings, that get the credit.

Editorial Review:

"During the 1970s and 1980s a word disappeared from the American vocabulary," begins American Apartheid ". . . That word was segregation." But the practice of segregation certainly has not disappeared, as Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton glaringly expose. One-third of all American blacks live in one of just 16 urban areas, in neighborhoods so racially segregated they have almost no chance at interracial contact. The authors argue that segregation--and disassocation from not only other cultures, but other ways of life--is at the root of many problems facing African-Americans today.

More Than Just a Game: Football v Apartheid

Prof Chuck Korr, Marvin Close

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Editorial Review:

'It is amazing to think that a game that people take for granted all around the world, was the very same game that gave a group of prisoners sanity - and in a way, gave us the resolve to carry on the struggle'. Anthony Suze, Robben Island Prisoner This is the astonishing story of how a unique group of political prisoners and freedom fighters found a sense of dignity in one of the ugliest hellholes on Earth: Robben Island. Despite all odds and regular torture, beatings and daily backbreaking hard labour, these extraordinary men turned soccer into an active force in the struggle for freedom. For nearly 20 years, the political prisoners on Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was infamously incarcerated, somehow found the energy, spirit and resolve to organise a 1400 prisoner-strong, eight club football league which was played with strict adherence to FIFA rules. The prisoners themselves represented a broad array of political beliefs and backgrounds, yet football became an impassioned and unified symbol of resistance against apartheid.They refused to let their own political differences sway their devotion to the sport, which allowed them to organise and maintain leadership right under the noses of their captors. This league not only provided sanctuary and respite from the prisoners' cruel surroundings, it kept their minds active and many credit it with keeping them alive. More Than Just a Game chronicles their story, the politics of the time, the extraordinary characters, their heroism and the thrilling matches themselves.

My Traitor's Heart: A South African Exile Returns to Face His Country, His Tribe, and His Conscience

Rian Malan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 47 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

memoirs of an Africaaner-1970-1990 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Before a recent visit to S. Africa, this book was recommended as an introduction to the political climate in S. Africa, especially after Apartheid. This very personal account told by Rian Malan, whose ancestors were directly responsible for the formation of the Apartheid society, traces his teenage rebellion against Apartheid, his career as a liberal newspaper reporter and his ultimate rejection of the violence that the new government has spawned. Be prepared for graphic descriptions of violence committed by both whites and blacks.

A good introduction to the complicated history of S. Africa and leaves the reader with questions regarding the future of that sad country.

Editorial Review:

Like many white South Africans of his generation, Rian Malan fled his country to dodge the draft. He felt incredibly guilty for this act, but would have felt equally guilty for not doing it: "I ran because I wouldn't carry a gun for apartheid, and because I wouldn't carry a gun against it." Malan, the product of a well-known Afrikaner family, returned to South Africa and produced My Traitor's Heart, which explores the literal and figurative brutalities of apartheid. Death is a constant presence on these pages, and the narrative is driven by Malan's criminal reportage. This acclaimed book intends to illuminate South Africa's poisonous race relations under apartheid, and few books do it this well.

I Write What I Like: Selected Writings

Steve Biko

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Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed." Like all of Steve Biko's writings, those words testify to the passion, courage, and keen insight that made him one of the most powerful figures in South Africa's struggle against apartheid. They also reflect his conviction that black people in South Africa could not be liberated until they united to break their chains of servitude, a key tenet of the Black Consciousness movement that he helped found.

I Write What I Like contains a selection of Biko's writings from 1969, when he became the president of the South African Students' Organization, to 1972, when he was prohibited from publishing. The collection also includes a preface by Archbishop Desmond Tutu; an introduction by Malusi and Thoko Mpumlwana, who were both involved with Biko in the Black Consciousness movement; a memoir of Biko by Father Aelred Stubbs, his longtime pastor and friend; and a new foreword by Professor Lewis Gordon.

Biko's writings will inspire and educate anyone concerned with issues of racism, postcolonialism, and black nationalism.

Dying to Live: A Story of U.S. Immigration in an Age of Global Apartheid (City Lights Open Media)

Joseph Nevins

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Very informative book and gives personal insight into the experience of Mexican immigrants 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

I've read a few of this author's books, and so far I'd say this one was my favorite. The book is very well put together, with chapters on the discovery of Julio Gallegos' body after he'd tried to cross the border into the U.S.; then a history of the Imperial Valley; a history of the border buildup; a vivid description of what life has been and is like in Juchipila, Mexico (where Gallegos was born); and a final chapter that shows the connection between the border and the continued needless suffering of those trying to escape poverty and find a better life elsewhere.

Throughout the book we learn of personal details of Gallegos' life, and that of his family who remain behind. After reading this book, it would be hard for anyone to hear of stories of immigrant deaths (while attempting to cross the U.S./Mexico border), and not feel like they may "know" these people a bit better...that they aren't so different from you and I.

The outstanding photos by Mizue Aizeki were a perfect complement to the text, and felt very personal and intimate.

I highly recommend this book!!!

Editorial Review:

Praise for A Not-So-Distant Horror:

"[A] remarkable book."-Noam Chomsky

Told through the life story of a young man who perished in the California desert, Dying to Live is a compelling account of US immigration/border enforcement and the rapidly growing death toll among migrants. Stunning photos by Mizue Aizeki complement the text.

Joseph Nevins authored Operation Gatekeeper: The Rise of the Illegal Alien and the Making of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary (Routledge, 2002), and A Not-So-Distant Horror (Cornell, 2005). His writings have appeared in the Boston Review, The Christian Science Monitor, and the International Herald Tribune.