Biography of a Runaway Slave

Book Description

...a powerful account of a vanished world...invaluable.-Newsweek

"Its contribution to our understanding of Cuban history and national temperament is no less than its immense appeal as a human testament....All the fire and dash of the Cuban character, the refusal ever to cringe or to give up, take on flesh and meaning in the reminiscences of this stubborn veteran."-Times Literary Supplement

Miguel Barnet lives in Havana, Cuba, where he was born in 1940. He is the originator of the tradition of "Testimonial" fiction in Latin American letters, and he remains the genre's acknowledged master.

Customer Reviews:

great read.......2007-05-14

This book gives great insight into a slave's life and his attitudes before and after freedom. He also tells about living in the woods as a runaway. Well worth the money.

Questionable change of authorship.......2004-05-25

In the preface to the (translated) 1968 edition of "The Autobiography of a Runaway Slave" (by Esteban Montejo, edited by Miguel Barnet), Barnet describes how Montejo had recounted his life story and adds, "Esteban soon became the real author of this book. He was constantly looking at my notebook, and he almost forced me to write down everything he said."

Though I do not own a copy of the recent edition, it is very puzzling that Barnet now lists himself as first author, followed by the translator, with Montejo's name last. Certainly the work of an editor or translator is arduous, and deserves proper credit. Yet both are distinct from the author's.

It's both an irony and a shame that Barnet, who is a white member of Cuba's ruling elite, seems to have appropriated the story of a poor, black slave, whose protests and defiance more than 100 years ago would surely be considered counter-revolutionary today.

REVIEW QUOTES.......2001-08-21

"...a powerful account of a vanished world...invaluable." --Newsweek

"An extraordinary record of a bygone era...Montejo reveals an appealing personality as he talks of women, religion, and politics. His descriptions of the activities and treatment of slaves on the Spanish plantations before and after abolition are fascinating. A rare record of history as it was lived..." --Library Journal

"Its contribution to our understanding of Cuban history and national temperament is no less than its immense appeal as a human testament...All the fire and dash of the Cuban character, the refusal ever to cringe or to give up, take on flesh and meaning in the reminiscences of this stubborn veteran." --Times Literary Supplement

a worthy read, some dull parts.......2001-04-19

some of this book was fascinating...to me. i found the old man's recollections of so many aspects of long-past cuba's rural life just gripping, but even moreso, to have it told, more or less, in his words, just added a special dimension that no other type of book could really create. i felt like i was being led on a journey by a character of such realness that no true "biographer" or fiction writer could approximate it.

particularly good parts: his descriptions of the cruelty of cuban slavery, of the cruelty of whites, of his ideas about sex, about certain aspects of the war for independence

now for the bad stuff: some of it, i must admit, just dragged. he was a religious/mystical guy, and all his descriptions of the old religions, though certainly realistic and valid, were just boring to me, and i started skimming. also, in part this book was the recollections of a 105 year old man, and so, while i give such an old man credit for being able to tell a good story (or perhaps the credit is due to the editor), it still reads at point like...an old man's story, and not an old man who has a true gift for story-telling. as for plot, forget it. suspense...think again. drama...no. just the facts, and thank god they're interesting enough on their own.

Masterful reconstruction of the life of a Cuban slave.......2000-06-15

Miguel Barnet, eduated in Havana at an American school, came to discover his Cuban heritage later in life. His tour-de-force was The Life of a Runaway Slave, the as-told-to-biography of Estaban Montejo, an earthy, candid man who had runaway from the sugar fields and who had fought in Cuba's wars for independence. One thing readers must remember is that Barnet intevriewed Montejo when the latter was 103 years old, in a nursing home, in 1963 when the interviews were started. Oral history is difficult enough and this great time-lag makes the task of the interviewer even more dificult.

Voices of the Fugitives: Runaway Slave Stories and Their Fictions of Self-Creation

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Voices of the Fugitives: Runaway Slave Stories and Their Fictions of Self-Creation
Sterling Lecater Bland , Of Being , and Nothingness: Caliban's Reprise
Manufacturer: Praeger Paperback
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

African-American & Black | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Slavery & Emancipation | World | History | Subjects | Books

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0275967077

Book Description

African American fugitive slave narratives are receiving growing amounts of attention for their literary and historical value. This book examines the techniques the slave narrative writers used to authorize and rhetorically create themselves in their writings. By examining such issues as voice and identity formation, the volume demonstrates how identity may be seen as a cultural fabrication. Former slave narrators used a series of masking and doubling techniques to address their experiences as African Americans. This book crosses the boundaries between literary criticism and historical study by examining the tensions between generic conventions and the impulses that created and reinforced them. The introduction and opening chapter offer clear and accessible discussions of the social, political, cultural, and literary conditions influencing the slave narrative genre. Subsequent chapters are built on this theoretical framework and present close analytical readings of The Confessions of Nat Turner, Frederick Douglass's Narrative and My Bondage and My Freedom, Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom, by William and Ellen Craft. The volume probingly traces the relationship between rhetorical self-creation and social ideology to show how that relationship was mediated within the fugitive slave narrative genre.

History Firsthand - Runaway Slaves (paperback edition) (History Firsthand)

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History Firsthand - Runaway Slaves (paperback edition) (History Firsthand)

Manufacturer: Greenhaven Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Book Description

From the very beginnings of slavery in America, countless bondsmen and women actively resisted their oppression by attempting to flee from their captivity. Whether abetted by antislavery sympathizers along the Underground Railroad or undertaking the rigors escape on their own, fugitives braved slave patrols, armed federal agents, harsh travel conditions, and the law itself in the quest for freedom. The selections in this volume include excepts from slave memoirs and accounts by Underground Railroad "conductors" as testimonials to the desire for liberty and the perils of escape.

Finding Freedom:: The Untold Story of Joshua Glover, Runaway Slave

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Finding Freedom:: The Untold Story of Joshua Glover, Runaway Slave
Walter T. McDonald , and Ruby West Jackson
Manufacturer: Wisconsin Historical Society
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

The Rescue of Joshua Glover: A Fugitive Slave, the Constitution, and the Coming of the Civil War (Law Society & Politics in the Midwest)

ASIN: 0870203827
Release Date: 2007-05-15

Book Description

Finding Freedom: The Untold Story of Joshua Glover, Runaway Slave

Ruby West Jackson & Walter T. McDonald

“Shall a man be dragged back to Slavery from our Free Soil, without an open trial of his right to Liberty?” – Handbill circulated in Milwaukee on March 11, 1854

In Finding Freedom, Ruby West Jackson and Walter T. McDonald provide readers with the first narrative account of the life of Joshua Glover, the runaway slave who was famously broken out of jail by thousands of Wisconsin abolitionists in 1854. Employing original research, the authors chronicle Glover’s days as a slave in St. Louis, his violent capture and thrilling escape in Milwaukee, his journey on the Underground Railroad, and his 33 years of freedom in rural Canada.

While Jackson and McDonald demonstrate how the catalytic “Glover incident” captured national attention—pitting the proud state of Wisconsin against the Supreme Court and adding fuel to the pre-Civil War fire—their primary focus is on the ordinary citizens, both black and white, with whom Joshua Glover interacted. A bittersweet story of bravery and compassion, Finding Freedom provides the first full picture of the man for whom so many fought, and around whom so much history was made.

From Natchez to New Orleans: Slaves, slave holders and slavery in the Woodville republican and Wilkinson county advertiser, 1823-1849

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From Natchez to New Orleans: Slaves, slave holders and slavery in the Woodville republican and Wilkinson county advertiser, 1823-1849
Roberta Louise Burns Hofmann
Manufacturer: Bolagh Scientific Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Slavery & Emancipation | World | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1891770004

Slave Uprisings and Runaways: Fighting for Freedom and the Underground Railroad (Slavery in American History)

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Slave Uprisings and Runaways: Fighting for Freedom and the Underground Railroad (Slavery in American History)
Ann E. Eskridge
Manufacturer: Enslow Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

Steal Away: Stories of the Runaway Slaves

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Steal Away: Stories of the Runaway Slaves

Manufacturer: Praeger Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0999141511

The Autobiography of a Runaway Slave (Warwick University Caribbean Studies)

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The Autobiography of a Runaway Slave (Warwick University Caribbean Studies)
Esteban Montejo
Manufacturer: Macmillan Caribbean
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Slavery & Emancipation | World | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0333535073

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Biography Of A Runaway Slave -
Miguel Barnet -
Manufacturer: Curbstone Press -
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000PS6P0G

Life of William Grimes, the runaway slave (Schomburg microfilm series)

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Life of William Grimes, the runaway slave (Schomburg microfilm series)
William Grimes
Manufacturer: [s.n.]
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Book Description

What has brought about the widespread public provision of welfare and income security within free-market liberalism? Some social scientists have regarded welfare as a preindustrial atavism; others, as a functional requirement of industrial society. Most recently, scholars have stressed the reformist actions of center-left parties during the decades following World War II, the workings of "new" post-industrial politics lately, and a multifaceted role of politics and state institutions overall. Alexander Hicks thoroughly revises these views, stressing the enduring significance of class organizations, however politically embedded, from the era of Bismark until the present.

Social Democracy and Welfare Capitalism describes and explains income security programs in affluent and democratic capitalist nations, from the proto-democratic innovators of the 1880s to the globally buffeted democracies of the 1990s. Hicks's account stresses the reformist role of employee political and economic organization and derivative institutions, in particular, social democratic parties, labor unions, and neo-corporatist arrangements. These forces, arrayed as the elements of a transnational and century-long social democratic movement, give direction and continuity to the emergence, development, and contestation of income security policies.

Customer Reviews:

Building Welfare States.......2002-09-17

Building welfare states to secure citizens against the income losses associated with unemployment, sickness and old age has been one of the major projects of government in all rich capitalist democracies in the 20th century. But why have some countries done more than others and done it in such different ways? Alex Hicks' Social Democracy and Welfare Capitalism rivals all of its predecessors in making these large questions both theoretically and empirically tractable. In six core analytical chapters covering six historical periods, Hicks takes us on an intellectual journey that begins with Bismarck (the emergence of welfare states) and ends with the younger Bush (the "crisis" of welfare states).

What is decidedly novel here is the fact that for each period Hicks brings to bear new and original evidence (not just the usual review of secondary sources) that he uses to test well identified research hypotheses that are theoretically based and historically contextualized. For comparative-historical analysis of this sort one needs to know lots of history and the history of lots of countries - a lifetime's work.

The story begins with the social movements and political actors, especially labor unions and reformist political parties, that created the foundations of modern social policy in the first half of the century and is carried forward to the present by the political institutions that were their progeny. It concludes with a careful analysis of the impact of globalization and demographic change on late 20th century welfare state "retrenchment" and suggests that there may be less here than meets the eye.

Social Democracy and Welfare Capitalism is social science in its best sense. It is not bedtime reading but the reward is large: over a century of welfare state history, carefully analysed, in 250 tightly argued pages.

Explaining a Century of Social Policy.......2002-09-16

In his prodigious Social Democracy and Welfare Capitalism, Alexander Hicks appraises the social democratic thesis through several phases of welfare state development. The result often goes against the conventional wisdom and in compelling ways.

Hicks's goals are nothing if not ambitious. He sets out to explain "the variable course of income security programs and benefits in relatively affluent, democratic capitalist nations" from the 1880s until the present. And he argues "for the
promise of class mobilization as a core element in the explanation of income security policy's differential development..."

He sees social democracy as a transnational social movement whose different manifestations-including its earliest mobilization, its governance modes, and its neo-corporatist forms-have driven social policy. That said, he supplements his argumentation by analyzing the mediating role of state structures on these processes.

What is remarkable is that Hicks speaks forcefully to so many
different debates about social policy-with an innovative argument about the evolving impact of social democracy over the last century, formal techniques, and historical sophistication. Social Democracy and Welfare Capitalism is required reading for both historical and quantitative scholars of social policy and others hoping to understand the transformation of states into welfare states over the last century.

Book Description

Based on the key idea that social protection in a modern economy, both inside and outside the state, can be understood as protection of specific investments in human capital, Torben Iversen offers a systematic explanation of popular preferences for redistributive spending, the economic role of political parties and electoral systems, and labor market stratification (including gender inequality). Contrary to the popular idea that competition in the global economy undermines international differences in the level of social protection, Iversen argues that these differences are actually made possible by a high international division of labor.

Between Capitalism and Democracy: Educational Policy and the Crisis of the Welfare State (Critical Studies in Education and Culture Series)

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Between Capitalism and Democracy: Educational Policy and the Crisis of the Welfare State (Critical Studies in Education and Culture Series)
Svi Shapiro
Manufacturer: Bergin & Garvey
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Education | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Policy | Education | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Federal Government | Government | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Education | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0897891503

Book Description

This volume of radical studies in the sociology and politics of education specifically addresses educational policies and the crisis of the welfare state--one of the central political facts of our time--and opens up new areas in the critical social analysis of education. Shapiro explores the interconnection between educational policy and the structure of economic, political, and cultural life in the United States, arguing that in spite of its practical and ideological autonomy, the educational region is not immune to the kinds of disruption and dislocation found elsewhere in society. Minority discrimination, urban decay, and the uneven results of the labor market as well as other conditions force new issues and questions onto the ideological policy agenda. However, in his cogent assesment of the state of public discourse, Shapiro discovers an absence, with one important exception, of reference to critical themes in mainstream political debate. He delineates the displacement into the educational area of crises that confront the lumpen class in America and that are experienced as economic deprivation, political disempowerment, and cultural disintegration and then speculates as to why a political agenda that speaks to the interrelatedness of the social crisis and the educational crisis remains unconstructed. The bulk of the eight chapters study a proposed political agenda for education that is resonant with the cultural concerns and social needs of subordinate and intermediary groups--a left agenda--that addresses three key areas: first, the crisis of values and meanings that consumption capitalism makes inevitable; second, the sense of disempowerment experienced by both subordinate and intermediary groups in American society; and finally, the issue of social justice based on the author's creatively expanded definition of the issues inherent to this concept including hunger here and abroad, the distribution of wealth and economic power, inadequate supply of shelter and medical care, and infant mortality. This important work with its invaluable analyses and proposals should be read by those concerned with the possibilities of radical intervention in public education during a period of conservative restoration. Must reading for students and scholars concerned with both the social analysis and critical study of education.

Freedom, Democracy, and Economic Welfare: Proceedings of an International Symposium

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Freedom, Democracy, and Economic Welfare: Proceedings of an International Symposium

Manufacturer: Fraser Inst
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Theory | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0889751161

Morality, Capitalism and Democracy (Choice in Welfare)

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Morality, Capitalism and Democracy (Choice in Welfare)
Michael Novak
Manufacturer: Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0255362668

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Politics, Wellbeing and the Market
A. M. J. Milne , and Alistair Milne
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Theory | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Political | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

Alan Milne builds on the argument of his Ethical Frontiers of the State that limits on governmental action are to be understood in terms of humanistic social ethics. Here Milne considers the role of the market in politics, and in particular the relation of the market to the obligations of government to advance human wellbeing. Issues covered include contingency in politics, the command economy, capitalism, the welfare state, inequality, and representative democracy.

Social Capitalism: Christian Democracy and the Welfare State in Europe

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Social Capitalism: Christian Democracy and the Welfare State in Europe
van Kersbergen
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

Christian democracy has been the most successful political movement in post-war Western Europe yet its crucial impact on the development of the modern European welfare state has been critically neglected. In this study Kees van Kersbergen demonstrates the precise nature of the links between Christian Democracy and the welfare state.
Using a variety of sources the author describes the origin and development of the christian democratic movement and presents comparative accounts of the varying degrees of political entrenchment of national christian democratic parties. Drawing upon cross-national indicators of welfare state development he identifies and explains the existence of a distinctively christian democratic (as opposed to a liberal or social democratic) welfare state regime which he labels "social capitalism".

Richard Harvey Brown, Culture, Capitalism, and Democracy in the New America.(Book review): An article from: Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

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Richard Harvey Brown, Culture, Capitalism, and Democracy in the New America.(Book review): An article from: Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare
Shanti K. Khinduka
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000VJB23Y
Release Date: 2007-08-29

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, published by Thomson Gale on March 1, 2007. The length of the article is 856 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Richard Harvey Brown, Culture, Capitalism, and Democracy in the New America.(Book review)
Author: Shanti K. Khinduka
Publication: Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 34 Issue: 1 Page: 173(3)

Article Type: Book review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

On Rawlsian justice in political economy: Capitalism, "property-owning democracy", and the welfare state (Research paper series)

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On Rawlsian justice in political economy: Capitalism, "property-owning democracy", and the welfare state (Research paper series)
Richard Krouse
Manufacturer: Williams College, Dept. of Economics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0007209V6

Social democracy in welfare capitalism: Structural erosion and welfare backlash ? (Discussion paper - Institute for Research on Poverty)

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Social democracy in welfare capitalism: Structural erosion and welfare backlash ? (Discussion paper - Institute for Research on Poverty)
Walter Korpi
Manufacturer: Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006WV62I

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